In the production of flat goods, such as bed sheets, towels, etc., the goods usually are cut from a supply of sheet material and the cut edges are hemmed. In some situations the side edges of the cut segments of sheet material do not need to be hemmed since the side edges comprise the selvage of the sheet material.
Various automatic machines have been developed and used for cutting and hemming sheet material. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,580,198, 3,640,235, 3,772,948, 3,906,878, and 3,955,515 all illustrate systems which are capable of automatically cutting segments from sheet material and hemming the cut edges of the segments. However, it is believed that the prior art devices have experienced some difficulty in controlling the cut edges of the segments of sheet material as the cut edges are being moved to and through a hemmer. In addition, the speed of operation of the prior art systems has been somewhat slow since speed of the overall equipment was limited by the speed of operation of the hemmers and the coordination between the feeding and cutting steps upstream from the hemmers is a faster, but intermittent operation which require coordination between the cutter and the hemmers of the systems.
In the past, it has been customary to manufacture bed sheets with the side edges of the bed sheets formed from the selvage from the loom, and with the head and foot edges of the sheet folded over and sewn in a hem. This procedure was thought to be economical since it avoided folding and hemming the side edges and required only the folding and hemming of the head and foot edges; however, when manufacturers began making bed sheets in not only single and double bed sizes but also in queen and king sizes, different sized looms had to be used to manufacture each size so as to provide the sheets in the desired widths. Thus, when it was desired to have bed sheets manufactured in four sizes with a particular design imprinted thereon, four looms had to be used to manufacture the sheets, and the dyeing equipment had to accommodate all four sizes.
While it has been known in the industry that sheets can be fabricated having their side edges folded and hemmed as well as having a hem formed at the head of the sheet, this requires three edges of the sheet product to be folded and hemmed, which is an extra and an expensive step in the prior art manufacturing processes.